Innholdsfortegnelse for #351 i Techlife News

Twitter suspended at least 58 million user accounts in the final three months of 2017, according to data obtained by Media. The figure highlights the company’s newly aggressive stance against malicious or suspicious accounts in the wake of Russian disinformation efforts during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Last week, Twitter confirmed a Washington Post report that it had suspended 70 million accounts in May and June. The huge number of suspensions have raised questions as to whether the crackdown could affect Twitter’s user growth and whether the company should have warned investors earlier. The company has been struggling with user growth compared to rivals like Instagram and Facebook. The number of suspended accounts originated with Twitter’s “firehose,” a data stream it makes available to academics, companies and others willing to…

On July 12, Apple announced that it was launching a new investment fund to enable its Chinese suppliers to more easily tap into renewable energy sources. Over the next four years, Apple and 10 of its suppliers – although yet more could yet enter the fold – will pour almost $300 million into the China Clean Energy Fund. The more than a gigawatt of renewable energy that this fund is set to spark will add to what is already a long list of Apple’s achievements for the planet’s health. CUTTING THE CARBON BUT NOT THE GREAT SERVICES In the press release announcing the ChinaClean Energy Fund , Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, Lisa Jackson, enthused: “At Apple, we are proud to join with companies that are…

WHAT TO EXPECT WITH APPLE WATCH 4 Apple Watch has come on leaps and bounds from its original release, adding support for cellular, allowing you to use your device even without an iPhone, and water-resistance, added with Series 2, designed to give consumers the option of using their Watches even when they’re in the pool. What’s more, thanks to improved heart monitoring and new workout options for disabled users, the Watch has become a staple part of millions of people’s lives - and evenhelped to save a life or two along the way . Designing the next generation Apple Watch was never going to be easy, but rumors and reports suggest that Apple Watch 4 will be the most innovative and advanced smartwatch to date. In today’s article, we’ve put…

Prototypes? Passe. Fashion company Betabrand saw that knitwear was a hot style in sneakers and wanted to quickly jump on the trend for dressier shoes. It put a poll up on its website asking shoppers what style they liked, and based on that had a shoe for sale online in just one week. What web shoppers saw was a 3-D rendering — no actual shoe existed yet. Creating a traditional prototype, tweaking the design and making a sample would have taken six to nine months, and the company might have missed out on the interest in knit. “The web attention span is short,” said Betabrand CEO Chris Lindland. “So if you can develop and create in a short time, you can be a real product-development machine.” Shoppers looking at the…

Family-friendly won out this weekend among North American moviegoers as “Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” towered over Dwayne Johnson’s action pic “Skyscraper.” Sony’s “Hotel Transylvania 3” easily took the No. 1 spot with $44.1 million in ticket sales, while No. 2 went to last week’s champ, “Ant-Man and The Wasp,” with $29.1 million. “Skyscraper” landed in third place with only $24.9 million. The film cost a reported $125 million to produce, before marketing costs. Fourth place went to Disney’s “Incredibles 2,” with $16.3 million. The film has now made $535.9 million domestically. And “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” rounded out the top five with $16.2 million. The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location,…

A digital subscription service for DC Comics superfans launching in the fall of 2018 has set its annual membership fee at $74.99. DC Universe and Warner Bros. Digital Networks announced the pricing plan at San Diego Comic-Con along with a trailer launch for one of its original live-action series, “Titans,” starring Brenton Thwaites as Dick Grayson. The service gives subscribers access to a massive archive of classic DC films, comic books and television shows, in addition to its planned original and live-action series. Monthly memberships will be available for $7.99 a month.…

Facebook announced several new hires of top academics in the field of artificial intelligence, among them a roboticist known for her work at Disney making animated figures move in more human-like ways. The hires raise a big question — why is Facebook interested in robots, anyway? It’s not as though the social media giant is suddenly interested in developing mechanical friends, although it does use robotic arms in some of its data centers. The answer is even more central to the problem of how AI systems work today. Today, most successful AI systems have to be exposed to millions of data points labeled by humans — like, say, photos of cats — before they can learn to recognize patterns that people take for granted. Similarly, game-playing bots like Google’s computerized…

A new tool for visualizing and tracking wildfires from the sky was launched on twitter by a New Mexico-based startup company, in an effort that combines super-computing capabilities with satellite imagery. Santa Fe-based Descartes Labs began distributing time-lapse video segments taken from satellite imagery of individual wildfires across the country. Hashtags that correspond to the name or location of fires are attached, allowing people to quickly find relevant imagery. The technology taps into satellite images derived from both visible and infrared light to trace the heat signatures of fires through the night and on overcast days when smoke may go undetected. “The long waves of infrared data can penetrate clouds and smoke plumes so that you can see the heat signature on the ground, so you can see the bright…

Comcast is dropping its bid for Fox’s entertainment businesses, paving the way for Disney to boost its upcoming streaming service by buying the studios behind “The Simpsons” and X-Men. Comcast can now focus on its pursuit of European pay-TV operator Sky, a deal that would give the Philadelphia-based cable and media company a larger presence outside the U.S. The moves come as the media landscape is shifting dramatically. Cable and telecom companies are buying content makers to compete with popular streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon. These emerging services are both creating their own content and distributing it outside of traditional cable and TV networks. Although internet providers like AT&T and Comcast directly control consumer access to the internet in a way that Amazon, YouTube and Netflix do not,…

A Google-affiliated company has chosen Kenya as the home of its first announced commercial deal for delivering internet access to hard-to-reach areas using high-altitude balloons. Loon, which is linked to Google through parent company Alphabet Inc., says it will work with Telkom Kenya to deliver 4G/LTE cellular access to Kenya in 2019. The balloons will be tested in central Kenya, which has been difficult to service due to mountainous or inaccessible terrain. The high-altitude balloons have already been deployed in emergencies in Peru and Puerto Rico, where they helped regions devastated by floods and hurricanes. Billions of people on Earth still aren’t connected to the internet. They tend to live in the poorest places with the least infrastructure to support it. The announcement comes just a week after Loon graduated…

Japan and the U.S. have extended their nuclear pact as Tokyo pledged to work to reduce its plutonium stockpile to address Washington’s concern. The 30-year pact agreed upon in 1988 has allowed Japan to extract plutonium and enrich uranium for peaceful uses even though the same technology can make atomic bombs. Without either side requesting a review, the pact was extended with an option by which it can be terminated by either side giving six months’ notice. The new condition, however, makes Japan’s nuclear program more susceptible to U.S. policy. Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters that Japan must reduce the stockpile to keep the pact in place stably. Kono said the pact is the foundation of Japan’s nuclear industry and Japan must make concrete efforts to “reduce the large…

Dollar for dollar, the beleaguered movement to bring charter schools to Washington state has had no bigger champion than billionaire Bill Gates. The Microsoft co-founder gave millions of dollars to see a charter school law approved despite multiple failed ballot referendums. And his private foundation not only helped create the Washington State Charter Schools Association, but has at times contributed what amounts to an entire year’s worth of revenues for the 5-year-old charter advocacy group. All told, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given about $25 million to the charter group that is credited with keeping the charter schools open after the state struck down the law, and then lobbying legislators to revive the privately run, publicly funded schools. It’s an extreme example of how billionaires are influencing state…

Microsoft is calling on Congress to regulate the use of facial recognition technology to protect people’s privacy and freedom of expression. It’s the first big tech company to raise serious alarms about an increasingly sought-after technology for recognizing a person’s face from a photo or through a camera. Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a blog post that the government should form a bipartisan expert commission. Smith says Microsoft, which supplies face recognition to some businesses, has already rejected some customers’ requests to deploy the technology in situations involving “human rights risks.” A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to provide more details about what opportunities the company has passed over because of ethical concerns. Smith defended the company’s contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying it doesn’t involve face recognition.…

Netflix has added far fewer subscribers than management had projected, renewing fears that its growth may sputter as it tries to fend off fiercer competition. The company gained 5.1 million subscribers worldwide during the April-June period, more than 1 million customers below the number that management had targeted. The company ended the second quarter with 130 million subscribers, including 57.4 million in the U.S, according to figures released this week. Despite that stumble, Netflix’s earnings still exceeded analyst estimates. Netflix Inc. reported profit of $384.3 million, or 85 cents per share. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 80 cents per share. The internet video service posted revenue of $3.91 billion in the period, falling short of forecasts of $3.94 billion. Netflix’s stock…

Rampage Ex-US Army Special Forces soldier Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson), now a primatologist, teams up with rejected genetic engineer Dr. Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris) and an albino gorilla called George, who can grow to colossal size due to a rogue experiment. The pair attempt to save Chicago from destruction at the hands of two other mutated animals. FIVE FACTS: 1. This film is loosely based on the Rampage video game series. 2. The first Rampage game was released for arcades in 1986 by the now-defunct publisher Midway. 3. The film is distributed by Warner Bros., which has also owned the video game franchise since 2009. 4. Dwayne Johnson’s starring role was first announced in June 2015. 5. Despite attracting mixed reviews from critics, Rampage has still received a better critical…

“Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again ” is a wholly ridiculous movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s the kind of movie that feels and sounds like a summer vacation should: Fizzy, lively, low-stakes and soundtracked by ABBA. This is a world where things generally just work out, where folks are kind and willing to help, where everyone has perfect beach hair, where characters just (asterisk)know(asterisk) they’re pregnant after one bout of morning sickness, and where old flings and family members are not only welcome to suddenly sail back into lives they’ve abandoned but greeted with joy and a song. Who’s got time for bitterness and jealousy in these Greek isles? The dialogue may be ridiculous, the plot may be questionable, and the musical numbers may be staged and stitched together…

Michigan State University plans to turn an old power plant built in the 1940s into a place to learn science, technology, engineering and math. Groundbreaking is expected next month for the STEM Teaching and Learning Facility. MSU is spending nearly $100 million — including $30 million from the state — to renovate the former Shaw Lane power plant. New construction will add significant space on two sides. Officials say the facility, expected to open in 2020, will have undergraduate teaching laboratories, project labs and breakout areas. The old plant will include a student commons and gallery. The power plant was built when the school was known as Michigan State College. It’s been unused since 1975.…

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is clarifying his stance pertaining to Holocaust deniers after getting some blowback on social media. Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, said in an interview with Recode that Facebook posts denying the Holocaust took place would not be removed automatically. Zuckerberg said he thinks that there are things “that different people get wrong,” and that he doesn’t think they are “intentionally” getting it wrong. Those comments landed with a thud online. The Anti-Defamation League said that Facebook has a “moral and ethical obligation” not to allow people to disseminate Holocaust denial on its platform. Zuckerberg later sent an email to the Recode interviewer, Kara Swisher, attempting to expand on what he had said. “I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn’t intend to defend the…

Visitors appear to be steering clear of some U.S. national parks or cutting visits short because of pollution levels that are comparable to what’s found in major cities, according to a studyreleased this week . Researchers at Iowa State and Cornell universities looked at more than two decades of data on ozone pollution at 33 parks — from Shenandoah to Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and Yosemite. They say visitor numbers dropped almost 2 percent when ozone levels went up even slightly and by at least 8 percent in months with three or more days of high ozone levels compared with months with fewer days of high ozone. Study co-author Ivan Rudik said air quality warnings issued by parks and other government agencies may be causing the visitation drop. That’s consistent…

When Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by police four years ago in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, the incident sparked a national debate over the importance of officer accountability. As that discussion continues, the Sioux Falls Police Department is set to roll out 30 body cameras in August after three years of testing the equipment, the Argus Leader reported. Proponents of body cameras believe recording every interaction with the public will help reduce incidents of police brutality, or exonerate officers in certain cases by providing video and audio footage to be reviewed. And while many police departments have embraced the technology, others claim the initial costs and continuing expenses for storage and processing are serious obstacles. Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken said the cameras…

European regulators came down hard on another U.S. tech giant Wednesday, fining Google a record $5 billion Wednesday for forcing cellphone makers that use the company’s Android operating system to install Google search and browser apps. The European Union said Google’s practices restrict competition and reduce choices for consumers. While Google can easily afford the fine, the ruling could hurt the company’s business model, which relies on giving away its operating system in return for opportunities to sell ads and other products. Google immediately said it will appeal, arguing that its free operating system has led to lower-price phones and created competition with its chief rival, Apple. Android has “created more choice for everyone, not less,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai tweeted . The fine, which caps a three-year investigation, is…

Whether it’s investors betting against his stock or reporters or analysts who ask tough questions, Elon Musk has fought back, often around the clock on Twitter. In the past few months, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has become a bigger, more snarling presence on social media. But when Musk called a British diver involved in the Thailand cave rescue a pedophile in front of 22.2 million Twitter followers Sunday (15), he may have gone one tweet too far. The tweet, later deleted, sent investors away from Tesla stock and could expose the temperamental rocket scientist to a libel suit. In the tweets, Musk strayed from a vigorous defense of his companies into personal insult, with no facts to back it up. “This has nothing to do with defending Tesla,” said…

A PROFESSIONAL MACBOOK FOR POWER USERS When Apple unveiled the fourth generation of its popular MacBook Pro lineup back in 2016, tech fans and consumers were thrilled. MacBook has been an integral part in Apple’s success for a number of years, but it’s fair to say that the company has shifted its focus to smartphones and tablets. With the 2016 MacBook Pro, however, Apple showed professionals that they still cared about creating cutting-edge laptops that rivaled the biggest names in technology; and they delivered. Less than six months later, in June of 2017, Apple refreshed the lineup, increasing processing power and memory, and giving users more control over their machine. July 2018’s MacBook Pro refresh takes the MacBook range to a whole new level and adds more processing power and…

A Wisconsin manufacturer has debuted new fusion technology in solar LED light fixtures that can be used in commercial and industrial applications. Energybank officials say that while the new technology looks like a typical light fixture, it doesn’t convert the power so lights last longer and are more cost-effective, WLUK-TV reported. The Manitowoc-based company has been working on the technology for years. “There really are no regular solar LED,” said founder Neal Verfuerth. “Everything on the market today has a battery and a lot of apparatus to make a grid connected, where this doesn’t have that.” The technology separates users from the power grid so buildings can be lit independently. A phone app can also be used to measure the amount of power needed based on the sun’s current location.…

Beautiful Life Rick Astley Back in 1987, British pop star Rick Astley topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic with his hit “Never Gonna Give You Up”, which has since had a new lease of life on YouTube. His ninth studio album, Beautiful Life, is especially heavy on power ballads all written and sung by himself. FIVE FACTS: 1. “Never Gonna Give You Up” reached the summit of singles charts in 25 countries. 2. Astley retired from music in 1993, by which time he had sold about 40 million records globally. 3. However, since the 2000s, “Never Gonna Give You Up” became popular for its prank appearances brought on through the clicking of disguised hyperlinks, a phenomenon called “rickrolling”. 4. Despite this Internet meme’s popularity, Astley has received…

Over 130,000 pop culture devotees are descending on San Diego’s Gaslamp District on Wednesday for the annual four-day comic book convention Comic-Con, the big, bright and very heavily branded confab of costumed superfans and the corporate sponsors vying for their attention — and dollars. Interested in dining at a working replica of the “Demolition Man”Taco Bell for the movie’s 25th anniversary? Or witness a mock court-martial of Star Wars’ Poe Dameron for leading a mutiny in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”? How about a wine and beer tasting with Neil deGrasse Tyson? Or a “Ready Player One” experience with retro gaming stations and recreation of Room 237 from “The Shining”? If you like pop culture, it’s highly likely there is something tailor-made for you at Comic-Con 2018. What started as…

South Africa has unveiled a powerful radio telescope, part of an international project that scientists say will provide new details on the Milky Way and other galaxies. They also are releasing an image described as the “clearest view yet” of the center of our galaxy. Officials are gathering for the inauguration of the 64-antenna MeerKAT, which was completed after a decade of design and construction. The global consortium building the Square Kilometre Array, or SKA, has support from countries including Canada, China, India, Italy, Britain, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and New Zealand. It includes a radio telescope site in Australia as well as in South Africa. South African Deputy President David Mabuza says the Square Kilometre Array will enhance the world’s “understanding of the universe.”…

Astronomers are still finding moons at Jupiter, 400 years after Galileo used his spyglass to spot the first ones. The latest discovery of a dozen small moons brings the total to 79, the most of any planet in our solar system. Scientists were looking for objects on the fringes of the solar system last year when they pointed their telescopes close to Jupiter’s backyard, according to Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institute for Science in Washington. They saw a new group of objects moving around the giant gas planet but didn’t know whether they were moons or asteroids passing near Jupiter. “There was no eureka moment,” said Sheppard, who led the team of astronomers. “It took a year to figure out what these objects were.” They all turned out to…

Microsoft Corp. reported quarterly profit of $8.9 billion, boosted in part by its efforts to rival Amazon as a key cloud computing provider for retailers and other businesses. The Redmond, Washington-based company said it had net income of $1.14 per share in the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended June 30. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring gains, were $1.13 per share. The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.07 per share. The increase in net income was 10 percent. The software maker also surpassed forecasts by posting revenue of $30.1 billion in the period, a 17 percent increase over the same time last year. Eleven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $29.2 billion. The company’s fastest-growing segment was what…

Foxconn Technology Group plans to open facilities in west-central Wisconsin. The Taiwanese electronics giant announced this week it has entered into an agreement to buy The Grand, a downtown Eau Claire building, and has purchased office space at Haymarket Landing, another downtown Eau Claire building. The company says it will use The Grand as a laboratory and the Haymarket Landing space as an innovation center, creating at least 150 jobs. Foxconn plans to close this year and begin operations next year. Foxconn is currently building a flat-screen factory in Mount Pleasant with the help of an unprecedented state incentives package. Last month the company announced it would locate its North American headquarters in Milwaukee and open a Green Bay office. Gov. Scott Walker says Foxconn’s investment will impact the entire…

Chinese mobile service giant Didi Chuxing and Tokyo-based SoftBank Corp. have set up a joint venture for taxi-hailing in Japan. The companies announced the plan Thursday for a service that will use artificial intelligence and data analysis on a technology platform available for free to all taxi companies in Japan. The service will roll out later this year, starting with a free trial run in Osaka, and expanding to Kyoto, Fukuoka, Okinawa and Tokyo, they said. The move marks the arrival of a major Chinese mobile transportation platform in a nation that has resisted ride-sharing businesses and protected its traditional taxi companies. The joint venture is mainly targeting the growing legions of Chinese tourists in Japan. Didi President Jean Liu told reporters she has long been impressed with Japanese cab…